6 more sleeps!!!

To be more specific- Michelle and I leave for Vermont in 6 days!!! Ever since we were little girls we counted down by 'sleeps'. I know this blog is primarily to journal my running and riding but honestly, it's all I can think of these days. I am so beside myself with excitement as the day grows near that I think I pee myself just a little every time I think of it!! To give you a bit of background, a co-worker and her husband took a bicycle tour with this company about 17 years ago. When she got back and I saw her pictures I knew at that very moment it was something I MUST DO. Well as we all know, life gets in the way. I was a single mother with 2 small children- this was not something I was going to be doing anytime soon.... fast forward 15 years -sister and I are now riding our bicycles thru southern Vermont and thoroughly enjoying EVERY SINGLE MOMENT. I knew then that I'd be back... which brings us to now, 2 years later, we are counting down the days till we leave again. This time we will be riding thru Northern Vermont, one day we will ride into Canada, one day into New York and we will also be doing some Kayaking... hold on while I go change my pants.... Ok I'm back. As if that wasn't enough, we met some of the nicest people on our last tour and I've kept in touch with one of the couples who live in Austin, Tx. They are going to be meeting us there and joining us on our tour!! And.... I've also kept in touch with the tour leaders we had the last time and have requested them, they have also told their office that they would love to be tour leaders on this tour so there's a good chance we will see them also!!!

A whole lotta walking goin' on...

I set out to do 5 miles this morning and my intent was to get up and be out of the house at 7am. I ended up getting up at around 7:15 and had some coffee and whole wheat toast w/ a little peanut butter. I decided to take my new water bottle with me so I filled that and put it in the freezer so it would be extra cold. It all seemed like a fabulous plan before I left the house...
Notes to self:

• cold water bottle= cold hands
• you know you need at least 1 hour between eating and running- don't try to fool yourself
• 8:30 is just too late to start a summer run
• the food you eat before a long run WILL affect the way you feel the next day

to say the least my run this morning was disappointing. When I started out I felt like I had put on my 83 year old grandmother's legs, I kept telling myself to push thru the first 2 miles, that the 'groove' would come but I had to take a walk break after 1.5 miles, another at 3.0 miles and the last 2 miles I think I walked every half mile, I never did 'find my groove' and merely traded my grandmothers legs for my mothers, they loosened a bit but never really got to feeling good... BUT on a positive note, I did learn some stuff that will help me in my Half Marathon training that we will be starting next month. Some of this I already knew but will need to make sure I pay closer attention in the future, like the time between eating and running and starting earlier to do a long run when it's hot. But the last note was something I had often wondered about. I wondered how much my diet actually affects my running. Now I know, it matters ALOT! Yesterday in the first half of the day my food was right on track- clean healthy food. But around 2:30 I ate 1/2 of a chocolate bar, had some more coffee, didn't drink enough water and to top it off I got home and ate 3/4 of ANOTHER chocolate bar and then for dinner I made bacon, eggs and toast and ate way tooooooo much bacon. Geez when I fall off the wagon I fall hard!!! It makes me sick just typing it, how on earth did I let myself eat that crap?! But that proves what I've know all along, I know NO MODERATION, I am better off not having a piece of chocolate because before you know it I've had 1 1/4 candy bars. I'm going to try to to this same 5 miles next week but am going to make a conscious effort to stay on track with a good mix of carbs and protein and LOTS of water the day before. We'll see.

I'm so excited to start Half Marathon training next month, Michelle is totally on board and we're going to try and do our long runs together so that should be fun. She runs a little slower than I do and I think that will be really good for me because I'm not a fast runner but seem to only have one speed, and will need to run a little slower for my long runs so her pace should fit just perfectly... I have printed out about 3-4 different training plans so we are going to talk about them on the airplane to Vermont-we leave 2 weeks from today (squeel!!!) and we will decide on one. Then we will start when we get back. We will do some cycling for cross training also since we will be doing the Tour de Palm Springs again this February. We are determined to finish that 100 miles this year (god help us). I will be blogging my way thru it, I hope you enjoy my journey.

Well, I'm off to shower the dried sweat off and enjoy my weekend.

Chain Reaction

I tell two friends, they tell two friends.... so the story goes. This morning we ran our September 5k, it was a memorial run at Mile Square Park. Michelle's friend Connie (pink stripes) ran with us. This was her very first 5k and she did amazing!!! She finished in something like 31 minutes! Woot Woot! It was blazing hot and started at 8:30, which as you know from previous posts, is just too late to start a summer run (in my opinion!!!). Anyway, I got to thinking after the race, how my crazy idea to 'become a runner' which came from another crazy idea 'to do a triathlon' has affected the people around me. I mean when I think about it, I knew going into it I'd drag Michelle along.... but then Josh started running, and then Jessica, and then Makenna...and now Connie. Who'da thunk it???

By far the craziest thing I've set out to do yet.....

Consider yourself warned, this is by far the craziest thing I've made up my mind to do YET... I'm sure there will be crazier ideas in the future but for now this is it.

I'm going to run a Half Marathon. Yep. Me.

I'm posting this here for a few reasons

1. accountability, because Lord knows I need to be held accountable for something....
   
2. motivation, because sometimes there are just things I'd rather be doing than running....
3. because I can.

Makenna and I went and saw "Julie & Julia" yesterday and the movie got me thinking.....I could do that. But that would require massive amounts of cooking, eating and would probably cost a small fortune. That would not be good. BUT, I could train for a Half Marathon and blog about that... now that's something I could do!! It's an idea I've toyed around with for a while now, would greatly improve my running and be good for me a the same time. At this point it is only an idea, the next step is to come up with a training plan. I've been looking at a few different ones so I will make a decision on one of them, tweak it as needed to fit my life and fitness level and then I will post it here. I will have the training plan in place so that when I get back from Vermont next month I can start it the week I return. In a perfect world I would be able to do this before the end of the year- which would also allow me to cross off another 'goal' that I set at the beginning of the year- but according to Active.com there are no half marathons going on in December :o( there is however one in Irvine in January. I may not be able to cross it off this year but what an awesome way to start the new year right??
So, there you have it, my 'tentative' goal race will be in January, I will button down the training plan and start it when I return from Vermont. I'm not decided yet if I will try to blog daily and post about each workout or if I should make it a weekly post...more on that to follow.

Epiphanies and Kryptonite

A while back I wrote about how I was not cut out to be a distance runner, that I didn't understand why I felt the need to run any farther than 4 miles because anything longer than that was just painfully boring....fast forward a few months and about a hundred miles and BAM it turns out I may be cut out to be a distance runner after all. Who'd a thunk it?? I've realized in the past few weeks that after mile 2 or 3 comes "the zone" everyone talks about. I've known for a while that the first mile is just crap, it's like the first pancake of the batch- garbage. My legs just never feel right, my breathing hasn't mellowed and my head still hasn't commited at this point. But if I hang in there, past the first mile, past the second mile it comes. Mile 3 feels good, mile 4 feels good and mile 5 feels like I'm starting to get tired but could go another if I had to. It's still quite odd to me. I still sometimes don't believe that I'm doing it. But on those days where I don't let my head talk me out of it, if I keep on running and pound out the miles, it feels FABULOUS.

Over the past few months I've had some stress- it seems I've given the Men in my life way too much. Too much power, too much control, too much of myself. They have taken too much of my time, self esteem, confidence and I refuse to give them anything more. Running is the ONE THING that I control, I do it for ME and on MY terms. I won't let ANYONE take this from me.

Kryptonite- another lesson learned is that SUN and HEAT are Kryptonite!! I may as well be running underwater with cinder blocks on my feet if it gets too hot! I keep reminding myself that aside from running Summer is my very favorite season and I must enjoy it! Squeeze in a run when it's cool and enjoy the day for what it is. Stay away from 9:00am start times for races because only crazy people run after 8:00am and if you cannot avoid it make sure you have plenty of water with you.... your gonna need it!

work in progress

I've been following Kristin Armstrong's blog on Runner's World.com for quiet some time now. I am never dissapointed in her posts. On the contrary, I am almost always left with the feeling that she was speaking directly to me and that she and I are somehow connected. I'm sure that seems weird considering I have never met the woman and she knows nothing about me but it's true. I love the way she writes and her words wrap you up the way an old friend would having not seen you for way too long. After reading her last blog entry and feeling like I couldn't get enough I went in search of other things she has written. In my search I discovered that she wrote a book called "work in progress - An unfinished woman's guide to grace". I went out that very night to buy it. In my first sitting with the book I'm about 1/3 of the way thru it and I already know that I will read it again the minute I'm finished- there are pages highlighted and once again, she has spoken directly to me.

So, what is it about her writing that speaks so loudly to my heart? She too is a mother raising 2 girls and 1 boy, she is a runner and most importantly she is a self proclaimed 'work in progress'. I feel about this book the way Oprah did when she read A New Earth (which I also loved). I remember her saying she went out and bought 30 copies of the book and gave them out. I intend to do the same (at least my scaled down version), I plan on going out and buying 3 copies of it to pass on (I refuse to part with my copy which will be dog-eared in no time!). I'm not sure yet who will receive them, but whomever it is they will be blessed.

I cannot expect every person I tell about this book to go out and read it, but if I could just share one paragraph from the book it would be this one. Keeping in mind I'm only 1/3 of the way thru the book, thus far this paragraph has touched me to the core and is my favorite paragraph:
"There is one surefire way to build trust with God. Scour His Word for His Promises and put them to the test! When you come up against a situation or circumstance beyond your own ability, instead of getting frightened or frustrated or calling everyone you know, try getting quiet." Now those are some powerful words! Let me think, how many times a day do I get frightened or frustrated and go on blabbing my mouth about it??? Oh maybe 1000! No matter how old I get I must be reminded, sometimes constantly, that I do NOT always know what is best and that I could use some Grace in my life and I too am a work in progress...

Will run for watermelon!!

Thursday evening Michelle, Josh and I ran the Summer Solstice Watermelon run, it was a 5 mile run thru El Dorado Park in Long Beach. It was kind of odd running on a Thursday evening and both Michelle and I thought it added a bit to the excitement. I tend to run best in the evening so I was thrilled at not having to be at a start line at 7am on a Sunday morning. Jessica went for moral support and she was given the job of "official photographer" which was kinda nice not having to worry about that part of it, but it was very nice seeing her smiling face at the halfway mark and again at the finish.
We get there, get our numbers, hit the bathrooms and line up at the Start line, which was facing the wrong way so standing behind it you couldn't see that the banner said START. This was my first indication that this run was not as organized as most we've done. Then I see a man and a woman standing on top of ladders next to the start line, wait their mouths are moving- he is giving directions! Verbally telling us what the course was (HUH????) well thank GOD I wasn't leading this pack because I couldn't hear a word he was saying.... and then she sang the National Anthem (from where we were she was lip singing!) and away we went. The course was flat with a few rolling hills, nothing major, nicely paved and overall a good course. It was a beautiful park with a lake so the scenery was nice too. I think we all did great times, Josh beat us once again with a time of about 50 min, I ran it in about 55 min and Michelle was behind me by a few minutes.
Afterward we got watermelons and took a bunch of pictures. The Honikels came to support Josh and they bought us all dinner afterwards which was very nice of them.
All in all it's been a great week of running, I finally broke my 10 mile mark with a total of 11.5 miles this week. I did 2 morning runs including one on Saturday morning, I got up early and did a nice 4 miles. I want to keep up with the morning runs as it gets hotter this may be the only cool part of the day to get a good run in.... I also want to try and get out with the running group from The Running Lab for maybe a longish run on Wednesdays.